Insights
by SadArticle
Summary: Original Knight Rider. A coda - yes, another one! - for 'Blind Spot', season two . Kitt is pushed too far, but will his dominant program stop him in time?


**Coda for 'Blind Spot' (season two)**

**Note**: _Based on a scene omitted from the final script, where Kitt's bad mood throughout the episode finally escalates to the point where he snaps and takes his anger out on the bad guy!_

A change had come over Kitt, and he didn't like it.

His dominant program was the preservation of human life, but this man, Louis Gastner, was not human.

And Kitt didn't care if he lived or died.

He wouldn't kill him – he couldn't – but neither did he have any particular regard for his safety. Kitt was incensed, his processor still recovering from the shock of being trapped in the car compactor, and now Michael was sending him to cut Gastner off before he escaped – did his partner know what he was suggesting?

Did Michael know what Kitt wanted to do?

The sleek black car, dusty but unscathed after escaping from the crusher's jaws, propelled itself with unerring precision through the labyrinthine pathways of Gastner's auto graveyard, homing in on its quarry. The carcasses of abused vehicles, man's beasts of burden, were stacked five or ten deep in rusting piles, picked over for parts and awaiting the final humiliating stage of their demise. Vividly aware of the destructive power that could reduce a load of six cars into a cube of twisted metal in under a minute, Kitt's rage at Gastner multiplied when he thought of a man meeting the same violent end. There had been nothing left of Alfredo's friend Celso but blood and the tiniest fragments of bone – how could he view that machine with anything but horror?

Why should he stop himself from treating Gastner with the same cold indifference?

"He's heading your way, Kitt," Michael told him over the comlink.

Gastner was out of visual range, but every other sensor was locked onto his position – fleeing on foot out of desperation, the coward was emitting a heat signature ideal for tracking by infrared. If that wasn't enough, Kitt could detect the odious man's body odour, ripe with fear and exertion. Michael was forcing Gastner directly into Kitt's path, the two of them closing in at right angles on his position, but Kitt would reach him first.

He would have to decide which was stronger – justice or vengeance.

It would be a fitting punishment to press the grasping scoundrel into his own scrap metal, but then who would answer for the death of Celso and other poor souls like him? This killer had no respect for anybody's life but his own, and nothing in him to restrain that basic instinct to survive.

Like KARR, Gastner's dominant program was self preservation.

Kitt only had to wait. Michael had cut off one escape route, sending Gastner stumbling blindly in the opposite direction, and now there was nowhere left to run or hide. A red cursor flashed on Kitt's monitor, tracking his progress remotely until the stocky junkyard dog himself skidded into view.

And Kitt was ready, his engine growling with barely contained frustration. He zoomed in on Gastner's face, identifying signs of mental and physical distress in the man's expression before his target turned and fled. The Knight 2000 took off in pursuit, sending plumes of dirt into the air.

"I have him, Michael," Kitt reported back. Locking his wheels to take the tight corner after Gastner, he simultaneously registered his partner approaching from the opposite direction. Michael was running fast, but Kitt was in the lead and set on course.

The computer scanned the row as he entered on Gastner's heels. It was a dead end, with broken cars piled high on three sides and Kitt blocking the only way out. Perhaps Michael, younger and considerably more athletic, could have scaled the sharp edges and rusted holes of the chassis towering overhead, but this pathetic specimen was trapped.

Kitt bore down on him, forcing Gastner to keep moving even though there was nowhere for him to go. Gunning his engine, he nudged the car's prow against the back of his legs and then braked, dropping back. Gastner screamed and stumbled, his arms wheeling wildly, but didn't stop. Again, Kitt revved up, pitching the sound from a deep roar to an insistent snarl.

Only when Gastner ran out of room did he turn to face the beast that was chasing him.

Reacting automatically, Kitt slammed on his brakes to avoid a collision. He was aware that Michael was behind him now, slowly edging along the offside of the car, but also that Gastner was exhausted and scared. With his back pressed against a wall of grinning radiator grilles and smashed headlights, he was incapable of evading capture.

The correct procedure would have been to back up and let Michael deal with him, but the irony of the situation was not lost on Kitt. Gastner was trapped, at the mercy of a machine that was stronger and more powerful than him and could easily break every bone in his body. The crusher had not relented when Gastner packed Celso into the trunk of a stripped automobile, nor when Michael faced the same fate inside their car.

Why should Kitt back down now?

The transmission was still in 'Drive', the engine idling. The lightest compression of the accelerator was enough to turn the wheels, closing the gap between the nose of the car and Gastner's legs. And at Kitt's present rate of speed, the contact of metal on flesh would not cause any pain or damage, but would show Gastner what it felt like when there was no way out.

Kitt advanced.

"Stop this thing!" Gastner yelled at Michael. "He's gonna crush me!"

"No less than you deserve," Kitt told him. "This is nothing compared to the force of that machine back there. Think of how Celso Mareno must have suffered."

Another revolution of the tires brought Kitt's scanner so close to Gastner that he could see the weave of his light-coloured trousers. Kitt couldn't feel his molecular bonded shell pinching flesh and digging into bone, but he knew that he had pushed as far as he dared. Although the metal cars behind Gastner would yield eventually, the man's legs would break first.

"OK, all right!" Gastner screamed. "Celso's dead – he's ... but it was a mistake, I swear to God!" he pleaded, trying to move his legs against the prow of the car. "Please!"

"What do you think, Kitt?" Michael asked, resting one hand on his partner's side mirror.

"I think he's lying," Kitt answered levelly, coming to a stop. "But I know a court of law will determine that without any further help from us."

Aware of the proximity of his driver, Kitt put the car into reverse and carefully backed up.

"Good work, partner," Michael said, patting the hot surface of Kitt's hood. "Now it's my turn."

He was ready to tackle Gastner, but found there was no need. Weak with relief and freed from the pressure of Kitt's frame, the burly scrap merchant collapsed to his knees.

***

"Well, I guess I can see why she chose you," Michael muttered, admiring the smooth contours of his partner. He turned the clay model around in his hands to view the profile of the car. "Nice lines."

"Thank you," Kitt said, readily accepting the compliment. "But I suspect that making a model of myself was simply easier than sculpting a bust of you."

He recalled a private memory of Julie Robinson, their blind witness to Gastner's ruthless violence, and how she had asked Kitt to describe himself. Taken aback by her interest in what he looked like rather than what he could do, at first Kitt could only supply basic specifications – a black, two-door coupe. _I know how many doors you have, Kitt_, Julie told him, _but I want to be able to 'see' you in my imagination. Would you mind if I take a closer look?_ Unable to comprehend how she might achieve this, Kitt had assented. He found that her methods of studying him were at once unusual, methodical and sensual – Julie had measured the shape of the car with her hands, running her fingers over every surface and curve from the 'KNIGHT' licence plate to his scanner.

Michael set down Julie's gift onto the passenger seat. "You heard her, Kitt – you 'moved' her, and I don't just mean a drive through the park," he joked. "Julie really took a shine to you. She likes you."

"Why do you sound as if you find that hard to believe?"

"I'm trying to convince _you_!" Michael threw up his hands, grinning. "You certainly have a way with women, Kitt."

"I learned from the best," the computer retorted. "I also think that perhaps Julie found it easier to accept my help. She enjoyed working with us to apprehend Gastner and his men."

"She did a good job, too," his partner agreed, regarding Kitt's voice modulator thoughtfully. "Thanks to you and Julie, that bully got what was coming to him."

"Thanks to me?" Kitt echoed. "But I didn't do anything."

"I know," Michael said simply. "That's what I mean."

Kitt was silent, trying to decipher what message, if any, lay behind those few, short words. Did he know? Could he understand?

"I thought you needed to get it out of your system, Kitt," Michael went on, looking at the miniature car beside him. "I've never known you take a case so personally."

"Michael, you know I don't take anything personally."

"And we both know that's not true," he shot back, glancing at the dash. "Look, it's OK, buddy, really - I don't blame you. Gastner is the lowest of the low."

"It's men like Gastner who give humanity a bad reputation," Kitt observed sadly. "I have been hardwired to protect human life, Michael – I could no more have crushed that man than you can stop yourself from breathing. I just wish that certain people could be programmed in the same way."

Michael nodded. "Me too, pal," he sighed. "Some people have that killing instinct, Kitt, but thankfully they are in a minority. The rest of us are conditioned like you – to respect life, not take it."

"I know, Michael."

"And I know you, Kitt," Michael said. "I know what you're capable of, and what you would never, ever do, dominant program or not."

"Gastner certainly didn't share your intuition."

Michael's lips twitched into a smile. "No. He didn't. And that's what you were counting on, wasn't it?" he asked.

Kitt hesitated for a fraction of a second. "I gave him a taste of his own medicine, as they say," he answered. It was less complicated to agree. "And it worked."

FIN.


End file.
